Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (
More info?)
"Vince" <NoSPAM2THISHAM@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1k78g1tqrc6rq9uj0utqllespfj7btfhp1@4ax.com...
> Yes, There is a toolbox that "estimates" the level of ink. It
> indicated low black ink, but since text characters were still printing
> black, I simply continued on printing text that way ......
That is fine. The low on ink indicator is just a warning to tell you that the
ink is getting low and that you should have a replacement available for when
the cartridge actually runs out of ink. You can continue to print with this
cartridge until (and beyond) it actually running out of ink.
> I am referring to the page that is printed whenever a cartridge is put
> into the carrier. There are two rows of continuous black boxes,
> followed by two rows of continuous yellow boxes, then a row of
> alternating black and yellow boxes, etc. etc.
> Apparently, I was low on black ink, and the calibration page printed
> two rows of gray, but I did not recognize this as meaning that the
> color ink cartridges were now making an attempt at printing the color
> black. Thus, I was wasting color ink to make up for the lack of black
> ink.
Did you have the #56 black cartridge installed or were you using a #58 or #59
photo cartridge? The printer will not automatically switch to using the color
cartridge because it thinks the black cartridge is low on ink. It will use the
photo or photo gray cartridge to print text if you have this cartridge
installed instead of the black cartridge.
> Well, I have now opened new ink cartridges for each color and the
> toolbox shows full. I will reinstall the old black cartridge and see
> (again) what the toolbox indicates.
If you put the old cartridge back in it should indicate it is low on ink as the
printer will remember the status of the current and previous cartridges.
> I still seek descriptive information about the meaning of the
> calibration page data. I don't think it is discussed in any of the
> supplied documentation (?)
There really is not any information on the calibration page that would be of
interest. The printer uses the color and black cartridges to print, then an
internal scanner looks to see the relative position of each. It uses this
information to calibrate the position during printing. The only item of
interest to a user on that page is the last line with the gray and color bars.
If this line has a green check mark the calibration completed successfully.
Regards,
Bob Headrick, not speaking for my employer HP